Marines wait for war at Kuwait camp / Thousands in desert prepare to 'go north'

John Koopman, Chronicle Staff Writer

Published 4:00 am, Sunday, February 23, 2003

2003-02-23 04:00:00 PDT Tactical Area Coyote, Kuwait -- Thousands of U.S. Marines swarm the Kuwaiti desert, kicking up a dust cloud that turns the sky opaque.

Machine guns rattle in the distance and tanks rumble and creak. A percussive boom smacks the air as artillery fires genuine, explosive, cannon shells. This could be just another military exercise, but the threat of war is real, and just over the horizon.

To the north, maybe 15 miles away, is the Iraqi border. It's where these Marines from the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment -- normally stationed at Twentynine Palms in San Bernardino County -- will go if President Bush orders them to war.

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But they're not ready yet. They sit in the endless flat desert and train. They live in white tents with wood floors and spend 12 or more hours a day setting up equipment, taking it down, firing real bullets instead of blanks.

Training seems constant as squads, fire teams, trucks and tanks move from place to place day and night. One afternoon, rifle squads practice medevacs for wounded Marines. Nearby, a squad is in the sand, prone, aiming at nothing, pretending the enemy is approaching.

"Damn-it, get your (expletive) muzzle up out of the sand," a sergeant barked at a young private.

That night, trucks and Humvees drive around the desert to practice driving under blackout conditions.

A LIFE OF 'SLEEP AND TRAIN'

There is no TV, no movies, no snack shop, no grocery store, no beer and precious few cigarettes.

What there is is sand -- not granular beach sand, but a fine, dry, dusty sand that goes everywhere and gets into everything. It's just one of the reasons they call Kuwait "the big sandbox."

Not so far away, Kuwait City is a modern, oil-rich city containing mosques, cellular phone stores, Burger King and Hermes boutiques. Kuwaitis have put up signs thanking U.S. forces for their help and sacrifice.

But to get to the little slice of heaven known as Camp Coyote, you drive out of Kuwait City, pass a shepherd taking his flock down the median strip, then go past the Highway of Death, made infamous in the 1991 Gulf War, to Highway 80. There you turn north. After you pass a police checkpoint, there is almost no civilian traffic, only convoy after convoy of U.S. and British trucks. If you continue on Highway 80, you will arrive at Iraq.

At Camp Coyote, rows upon rows of white tents are set up to house the foot soldiers and tank crews. Local Kuwaiti contractors supply some of the food for a tent dining hall, but most meals are still MREs -- the military acronym for Meals, Ready to Eat.

The contractors set up 20,000 portable toilets. Inside, on the door facing the seat, posters explain how to spot Iraqi mines and the best way to kill a T- 62 Russian tank, one of the weapons in the Iraqi arsenal.

While there are more than 130,000 U.S. troops in the Gulf region, they are dispersed over a wide area and across a number of countries. Despite the hustle and bustle of nearly constant training, Camp Coyote can seem desolate and isolated.

When the commanding general of the 1st Marine Division came to visit, he arranged for a flyover by F/A-18 and Apache helicopters, both capable of tremendous firepower. Lt. Col. Bryan McCoy, commander of 3rd Battalion, said the general staged the demonstration to remind infantry companies they're not alone in the desert, let them know they have support.

McCoy, of Oklahoma, said that if told to go to war, his troops are ready. Here, they call it "going north" or "crossing the berm," referring to an earthen line that runs along the Iraqi border.

"They've already asked forgiveness for what they're going to do to the Iraqi army," McCoy said.

Here and there, spaced among the armored personnel carriers, young Marines stand guard. Not training, just watching, their M-16s held ready, as their buddies run through drills.

1st Lt. Eric Gentrup of San Jose said the men are what the 1st Marines calls "Guardian Angels." The commanding general came up with the notion, he said. The idea is that a Marine unit should always have someone standing by, at the ready. Even in a rear area, guards give a sense of security to a unit --

that their buddies are watching over them, and their gear.

Most of these men have been at the camp now for three or four weeks. It's a long, monotonous haul, and there is a concern among the military brass that troops will lose their fighting edge if kept in such conditions for too long.

So far, the Marines don't seem to mind. The conditions, primitive as they may be, are better than anyone expected. They get to shower once a week and usually have hot chow once a day. Sometimes, though, the dining hall food is so bad they'd prefer MREs.

If there are soldiers who want to go to war, they aren't heard here. Most everyone wishes the whole Iraqi issue would go away, so they can get home to their families. No one really wants to go north. But the sentiment is, if that's what has to be done, let's do it and get it over with.

Staff Sgt. Ira Taylor of Jacksonville, Fla., said he hears guys talking about how they want to go to war, but he wonders if it's real.

"Some guys are like 'kill, kill, kill,' but is that what they're really thinking or is it a confidence-building thing for them?"